


Storge

by mamodewberry



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Baby Yuuri and Mari, Ballet, Best friends Minako and Hiroko, College, Gen, High School, Minako Loves the Katsuki Family: A Study, Pre-Canon, Real Life Be like that tho, nla-verse-ish?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-05
Updated: 2020-03-05
Packaged: 2021-02-28 18:15:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,214
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23021572
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mamodewberry/pseuds/mamodewberry
Summary: Minako thought she had her life in order in her youth. Boy was she wrong. Turns our she really loves having Katsuki drama to look forward to.
Relationships: Katsuki Hiroko & Okukawa Minako
Comments: 6
Kudos: 47





	Storge

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Furious](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Furious/gifts).



> This is a commission fic for @FuriousSnow on Twitter! The prompt came from fanart by @Quel and there was an open call for a commission and I rose to the challenge. You can see the art and thread [HERE!](https://twitter.com/FuriousSnow/status/1214166889603063815). It went a little different than I anticipated, such is writing, but may it still convey the point across. 
> 
> I love Minako, I write her for [Never Look Away](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8997835/chapters/20547385). This ficlet isn't within the universe, but several of my own HC crossover anyway. It was a lot of fun to explore her character like this. What a prickly tsundere ;)
> 
> Title comes from the Greek set of loves, Storge being familial love, which can be extended to friends and great compassion towards them. 
> 
> Thank you my lovely beta/CP @gabapple!

“Dammit, I give up!” Minako threw her cross-stitch project of what should have been a house across the room.

“Ms. Okukawa!” Mrs. Akari admonished. “One more outburst and you will be asked to finish your tantrum in the hall.”

“Ugh, I’m going out there anyway. I don’t understand this needle stuff. It’s stupid.”

The teacher gasped while many students snickered.

“You stand out there the rest of class, then.”

Minako sniffed and stormed out the door with a flick of her hair.

She leaned against the wall and looked at her sore fingers. Too many times the stupid needle jabbed her fingers with or without the thimble. “This sucks.”

“It’s an acquired skill. Not every girl can do it.”

Minako looked away from her fingers to a shorter, rounder, bespectacled, mousy girl. She’d never seen her before, but she must have been in her class since she spoke with certainty about the whole ordeal. Minako quirked a thin brow at her. “What if some girls just don’t care?”

“Oh! More of a sporty type are you?”

“Kind of. I’m not a tom or anything, but needlework and making frou-frou crafts? It’s pointless. That’s not what really what gets a man.”

“What are you into?”

“Are you asking my type? Did Fumi put you up to this and you have a brother or something?”

“N-no, I don’t have a brother. I don’t know who Fumi is, either. I meant the ‘feminine’ traits you are you into.”

Minako sighed. “I’m not devoid of femininity, thank you very much. I dance. That’s where my focus goes. ”

The girl nodded, glasses slipping down the bridge of her nose, which she adjusted back into place with a finger. “Um… Okukawa-senpai, I’d be willing to teach you. I’m not the best, but I’d hate for you to fail Home Ec.”

Again, Minako raised an eyebrow. “That’s rather generous… what’s in it for you?” She tried not to sound too suspicious. The girl didn’t look particularly threatening. Then again, the quiet ones were usually the ones to look out for.

Mousy Girl blushed and looked at her folded hands in front of her. “Could you teach me how to dance?”

“I dunno…” Minako considered. “That’s a lot of time out of my day.”

“Mine, too.”

“Touche. You strike a hard bargain. I do need good grades the rest of high school if I’m going to be able to study abroad. All right; deal.” Minako held out a hand. “What did you say your name was?”

“Hiroko Tsumugi,” she said taking the offered hand in one of her smaller ones.

After a week of lessons, Minako was no closer to understanding why needlework was important for people to learn. Sewing seemed practical, but she could pay someone to fix her clothes. But little thread artworks of houses and cats and cutesy sayings?  _ Why? _

Hiroko was a good teacher, despite Minako’s unwillingness to care. Her threads were less tangled and the backing less like a Pollock painting. 

Ballet wasn’t the sort of dance Hiroko had been expecting, though. 

“It’s okay, we don’t have to go get you a pair of slippers and a tutu. There’s plenty I can teach you without getting you  _ en pointe _ .”

She had a decent sense of rhythm and reflexes, just needed some fine tuning for posture and form. More than enough to repay the needle classes. 

But as the school year continued, Minako remembered she wasn’t good at cooking either. 

“I can keep teaching you how to dance, that’s all the valuable skills I have.”

“Give yourself more credit than that, Okukawa-senpai. Besides… I could help anyway since we’re friends now, aren’t we?”

The answer surprised her. They had spent a lot of one on one time together and Minako did enjoy it. And missed it once the needlework assignments were done, though she had not admitted this to Hiroko. “Yeah, I guess we are,” she smiled. 

“Thanks for coming to my recital, Hiro-chan. It means a lot.”

“You danced beautifully, Senpai! Of the best on stage.”

“Of the best? Not  _ The _ Best?”

“Well…”

Minako gave her a shove. “Brat.”

Hiroko giggled and continued on along the blossom-covered path. 

“One more year of recitals and I’ll be done with the ballet academy and high school, then it’s on to the world.”

"I’m happy for you, Senapi. I’ll miss you as I finish my last year of high school.”

“Geez, don’t sound so sad about it. One more year to enjoy this and then you can get weepy. And it’s not like I won’t write or call. Hell, I’ll have to visit since I doubt my parents will want me to be away too long.”

“As long as you promise to keep in touch, I don’t mind what you do.”

Their route weaved downhill until they were walking alongside the fence of Hasetsu’s onsen. Home was just a few more blocks, Minako could smell the tea she’d be making once she got home.

“Hey, want to come to my place for a bit? I picked up this magazine at the k _ onbini  _ over the weekend about skin care. I thought we could do it together. What do you think? … Hiro-chan?”

Hiroko abruptly looked up at her, cheeks flushed and eyes a little… what was the phrase? _ Caught in the act! _ ?

Minako took a glance around to see a youngish man sweeping the entrance of the local onsen. She lowered her voice. “Were you checking out that onsen worker just now?”

The fingers on the handle of her school bag fumbled. She seemed more pleased with herself than embarrassed. “He’s really cute, don’t you think?”

Again Minako looked back, but they were too far away for Minako to fully assess the assets herself. “Any idea if he sweeps the same time everyday?”

“Every other day.”

“Observant. I like that. Into older men, are you?”

“It has its appeal,” Hiroko said so matter-of-factly Minako had to wonder what her dating experience had been like all this time.

“We should stop by the day after tomorrow and talk to him. How many times have we walked by and he was standing there and I’ve never noticed?”

Hiroko made a play of counting on her fingers.

“Okay, I get it, men in glasses and _ jinbei  _ aren’t on my radar. But they are for you, clearly. So. We’re going to make this happen.”

“I was hoping you’d say that,” Hiroko’s chipmunk cheeks raised with her smile. 

“... is that the real reason you wanted me to teach you how to dance?”

“I want everything in my arsenal.”

“You little minx!” Minako threw her arms around her. 

A year passed and graduation came. Hiroko cried. A lot. 

But not as much as Minako.

Leaving Hasetsu turned out to be the hardest thing she’d ever done. She’d miss out on so much with her friend and her new boyfriend Toshiya. They were so cute. And suspected the cute and prudish nature they showed wasn’t what they were like behind closed doors and that was the sort of dirt she wanted from her best friend. 

Alas, phone calls and letters weren’t appropriate to discuss those sorts of things anyway. Or so Hiroko told her.

New York was filled to the brim with men and yet Minako couldn’t land herself one. She felt jealous of her friend, so it was good and bad little details were shared.

Until she got a wedding invitation in the mail. 

“YOU DIDN’T TELL ME YOU WERE THAT SERIOUS ABOUT HIM!” Minako nearly strangled herself in the phonecord on her kitchen wall. 

“I… didn’t want to bother you,” Hiroko answered, flustered. “Plus, you’ve been really stressed with the troupe and your job.”

“Hiroko Tsumugi… Hiro-chan, I cannot believe you! Am I the last to know?!”

“You’re the first…”

“But, this invitation?”

“It’s the only one we made so far. It’s a prototype for your approval. What do you think?” 

The card was of standard size with a cute graphic of an  _ ikebana _ arrangement of orchids. The font announcing the couple and date was a mix of red, gold, and charcoal. This would be the first wedding Minako would attend of someone she personally knew. “It’s perfect. I’m going to buy a new dress.” 

Minako mailed catalog clippings of the dresses she considered for the wedding party in the mail. Waiting a week for Hiroko’s phone call was torture.

In the end, Hiroko chose the most modest of the four. Disappointing, but not surprising.

“I’m not going to have you deal with my parents being upset with you being in the photos. It’s the safest bet!” Hiroko apologized and Minako could practically hear the bowing. 

Blue with three-quarter sleeves. Knee length. Perfect for a spring wedding at the Karatsu Shrine. Even if the decor and flowers and borrowed  _ uchikake _ was less than what Minako thought her best friend deserved, Hiroko was radiant. And Toshiya, Minako had to admit, was more of a looker than she previously gave him credit for. 

She couldn’t help much with the wedding itself, but Minako scrounged what she could afford to give to the happy couple so they’d have an amazing honeymoon. She couldn’t help snorting when they said they’d be going to a  _ ryokan _ by Mount Fuji. How was Toshiya not tired of working at an  _ onsen _ one his whole life? Then again, being waited on by someone else would be a nice change. They’d both need the break if Hiroko really was going to marry into the family business. 

An  _ onsen _ keeper. 

Marrying a doctor would have been a much cushier deal, but Hiroko loved the homey personality of Toshiya and the stability of employment. 

“Just don’t slack off on your own duties because you have a wife now, Toshiya,” Minako jabbed the groom in the ribs. “She’s not free labor.”

Toshiya laughed and adjusted his glasses. 

Minako didn’t hear from Hiroko for months. 

She was a newlywed. A married woman. A wife. And everything else tying the knot with a man meant. 

If it weren’t for how busy she herself was between work and each passing ballet performance and audition, Minako would feel more forgotten. 

Maybe there were missed calls. Hiroko was the type that didn’t like to leave messages despite the multiple times Minako had to remind her of the timezone and it was totally fine to call whenever. But no letters? Photocopies from the happy couple’s honeymoon were tacked on a corkboard in Minako’s pitiful dining room. That was their last correspondence.

How long was it acceptable to not bother your best friend? Three months? Six? Nine? A year? 

She was tempted to write a quick letter asking for Hiroko to call her when they were done banging, but resisted. Not only would it be rude, but reveal more to her friend how not well her own love life was going. You’d think she’d have more luck finding more than a casual dance partner! 

Losers. 

On one particularly shitty late night shift full of perverts and people puking on her shoes, the phone rang. 

There was only one person who would be calling her at 1am. 

She dragged her feet to the phone hanging on the wall in the kitchen, navigating around takeout boxes and the flickering light of the cheap candelabra. 

“Hello?”

“Senpai!”

Minako gave a half snort. How many times had she told her to call her by her name? It was good to hear her voice. “Hey, long time no see!”

“You sound tired… I’m so sorry to call so late, but I just found out and I have to tell you.”

“What did you find out?” It sounded like good news, please let it be good news. 

“Toshiya and I are expecting!”

So they really  _ had _ been banging! “Wow! That’s amazing, Hiroko! And so fast. Oh my god. Couldn’t wait, could you?”

“We really couldn’t,” Hiroko said, grin so audible and fond. 

“When are you due?”

It was the end of April when Minako was on a flight back to Japan. She had tried so hard to get the time off so she could be there with Hiroko in the hospital for the birth of their baby, but the stars weren’t in her favor. 

There was a sickening feeling in her stomach the entire flight that she knew couldn’t just be airsickness. 

The new parents had brought their bundle of joy home to Yu-Topia, and not a thing had changed about the place since Minako left. 

Two years hadn’t been long at all. 

Mari was the name they’d chosen for their baby girl. She was wrinkly and squishy and not very cute. With how Hiroko and Toshiya cooed, Minako decided to keep that to herself. 

But then she was allowed to hold Mari.

So tiny in her arms, large eyes still so new to the world and what surrounded her. 

And it was then that Minako realized what the not-airsickness was.

She was  _ homesick _ . She missed her friend and wanted to protect her squishy, not-cute daughter at all costs! 

So she started to cry.

“Minako-senpai… what’s wrong?” Hiroko asked, positioning to take her baby if needed, but more concerned than anything. 

Minako brought a sleeve to her eyes. “I don’t want to miss anything else. I want… to move back to Japan as fast as I can.”

For the next five years Minako was a slave to her career. What extra time she had she slept or tried her hand at a relationship to stay tangibly sane with human interaction. New York’s men were workaholics, so an equally workaholic woman would make the perfect pair, right? Nope. Just as well since it wasn’t like she wanted to stay in the city or the country either. 

What extra finances she had, she squirreled into savings for her goal to return back to Hasetsu. Except for some she used for beer and wine. 

It was a vice she fully accepted was one and one she needed to survive the gruelling demands of her hectic life. 

Minako graduated at the top of her class. Won troupe awards. Received applause and admiration at weekly performances that at one point her apartment looked like a florist shop. 

All did little to satisfy the sense of belonging she yearned for. 

New York had sights and the glistening temptations of opportunity at every corner.

But it was heavy with disappointments. Most of all; it was lonely. 

A younger her couldn’t wait to leave the rural port town of Hasetsu and all its unchanging drabness. 

Present Minako’s feet were in constant pain and wanted nothing more than to stand in the tide and let the quiet town swallow her whole.

She wondered if she could bring a little change to her home life. Make her ambitious dreams of being a ballet dancer not just succumb to trophies that collected dust on a shelf.

‘Those that can’t do, teach’ suddenly gained a new meaning. 

Hiroko and Toshiya were at the arrivals door when Minako exited the skyway, a ‘Welcome Home!’ banner held between them with little Mari holding it up in the middle. 

She would not cry. Not in public. 

At least try not to. 

“Go say hi to auntie Minako!” Hiroko nudged her daughter. 

Of course Mari didn’t remember Minako’s visit when she was an infant. Minako hadn’t been back since, so it was impressive that the girl shyly took a few steps towards her. She did more of a lean on, than a hug. It was progress Minako hadn’t earned for herself, but she appreciated that clearly Hiroko talked about her friend enough to gain some endearance.

“We have a room made up for you at the onsen for however long you need it,” Toshiya said, the ever accommodating host. 

“I’ve got some appointments made to look at properties this week. Hopefully won’t take too long to decide. Hasetsu as it is…”

“I’m sure you’ll get ballet students right away! Mari was already telling me that she’s interested.”

Minako crouched to the girl’s level, pleased. “Is that so?” 

She shrugged.

The non-committal response earned a slight reprimand from her parents, but Minako didn’t mind. Mari had spunk and she reminded her of herself. 

Four months later, Mari did become Minako’s first student at her newly opened studio. She’d been able to sneak in paint days after the lease had been signed between the hardwood floor, mirror, and barre installers. It was a small place, but for a town like Hasetsu it was perfect in its quaintness. 

The unintentional private lessons went on for a few weeks (the girl was a born natural!),and then Minako sent Mari to school with some flyers to put up at kindergarten. Surely that didn’t qualify as child labor. 

Another week later Mari came back with two other girls. They weren’t as good, but they brought in business. 

Of November that same year, Minako was at the hospital for the arrival of Hiroko and Toshiya’s second child. A boy they named Yuuri. 

Being there for the birth and holding him shortly after his cleaning, he was softer, wrinklier, fresher, and squishier than Mari. Still just as not-cute, too, but tiny, so very tiny. 

She was here now in Hasetsu and she’d see the children grow just like she wanted, six years ago when she held Mari.

And be there for her friend when times got too hard. Be the best friend, aunt, and babysitter ever. 

“I hope he’s a dancer, too.” 

Not only did Yuuri join Minako’s ballet class when he was old enough - much to no one’s surprise as Minako wasn’t exactly subtle about wanting both Katsuki children in her care - he also joined an ice skating club. The boy enjoyed the art of his own body motion even at such a young age and challenging himself. 

Once Mari reached her teens she became less interested in ballet. It was a hard lifestyle and definitely not for everyone. Someone could think it was at some point, be their life long dream, only for it all to go to hell. Or feel like it. So when Mari came to resign, Minako applauded her decision, but insisted she still stopped by to pick up Yuuri or whenever. 

She did. 

Mari was much more of a social creature despite her cool temperament. She always seemed to have a gaggle of friends at the onsen or lingering at the local  _ konbini _ after school. Friends were a good reason for dropping ballet. Oh, and school and whatever.

Yuuri practically lived at Minako’s studio and the ice rink. Poor kid was as antisocial as they came. Minako tried to nudge him to talk to the other kids in ballet. Eventually he befriended, rather,  _ she _ befriended him, the daughter of the family that owned the ice rink and some tubby neighbor kid. 

Still, he seemed to be the happiest with a pair of slippers or skates on his feet. 

Minako worried he’d fall into the same trap she had.

Although, it was entirely possible he had what Minako didn’t. 

Hiroko and Toshiya were good parents. Better parents than either Minako or Hiroko had growing up as far as she could tell. They seemed to know when to push their children and when to set them free. 

Mari didn’t feel a desperate need to go to Tokyo for The Best education like her friends did. She was content to get her generals with extra economic courses in Saga, coming home for the weekends. Would her parents have supported her if she wanted to go to the city? Move away? Attend more schooling to get a degree?

Of course they would have, but Mari decided the onsen life suited her fine and didn’t need anything else. Already had a job and a roof over her head. 

Practical was how Minako would describe the Katsukis as a whole.

Then there was Yuuri. 

He continued with his sporting passions. Graduated from Minako’s ballet studio. Got on the national figure skating team despite his anxieties and nature. Yuuri was particularly odd about praise of his accomplishments, sitting somewhere between modest and disappointed in himself for some bar no one else saw. For his losses he didn’t want comfort, either. It was a good thing ice skating was an individual sport.

All he wanted was quiet support. And Minako gave it to him. With the addition of banners and cheering from the sidelines.

She was at every local competition, occasionally the international ones, and steadily became a skating fan herself along with Mari. Hiroko and Toshiya were too busy to go too far from the business, but they tried their best to record them on TV despite never really grasping much of point scores or technique. 

Unlike Mari, Yuuri did want to attend school away from home. Far away. It was mostly to get a new coach for his senior debut, but he really did care about getting an education and being independent. Minako respected that. Even though she would miss him for the whole time he was gone. 

Yuuri came back to Hasetsu after finishing school, following his devastating defeat at the grand prix finals. Minako recognized those slumped shoulders, downcast face, and raincloud when she picked him up at the station. 

She knew what it was like to fail at a dream. 

Yuuri didn’t want solidarity, a welcome party complete with a viewing of World’s, nor drawing attention to himself with a banner and posters all around the station. She couldn’t follow  _ every _ Yuuri demand!

A few months later when the cherry blossoms would have been at their highest, snow blanketed the town with the arrival of the famous Russian ice skater and Yuuri’s crush, Viktor Nikiforov. 

It was easy to tease and joke about Yuuri’s oh so obvious flustered state then as it had been the years leading up to it, but Viktor started to bring out the best in the anxious boy. Viktor represented the dreams he thought he’d missed out on and here he was dragging Yuuri back in. If one of Minako’s instructors from back in the day showed up out of the blue and offered to kick start her career again, she’d do it in a heartbeat with or without the sexy implications. 

Yuuri made it all the way to the grand prix final, the last eight months paying off in ways Minako was sure he hadn’t imagined possible after the low he had. She was proud of him. And she cried so, so much in the stands as she watched him receive a silver medal on the podium.

With a sheepish grin, he told her he wasn’t going to retire after all. He promised Viktor gold for the next five years. It sounded impossible, but then again, Yuuri proved he really did have what it took. 

Minako knew love was what made her best friend Hiroko happy. She needed little else in life but companionship in her husband and the rearing of her children. A successful _onsen_ boosted by the celebrity status of her son was a bonus.

As far as she knew, Mari hadn’t found love, but seemed content to not seek it out and let it find her. Or was it a love of the present that made her so strong?

Love inspired Yuuri in ways he consciously didn’t realize. But his romantic love with Viktor was what brought it all out and changed him. 

All of them, honestly. 

On a spring day - like most important things that happened - and several skating seasons later, the family and friends of the Katsukis gathered for the marriage of their son, Yuuri, to his coach, Viktor. 

Minako would never stop snickering about it even through tears. 

Due to the Katsuki’s practicality, the ceremony was modest. It was held at the nearest temple, Yuuri borrowing Toshiya’s  _ montsuki haori hakama _ . The most expensive thing in the room was likely Viktor’s sharp suit and cufflinks if Minako had to take a guess. 

It was a cute combination of Japanese and Russian traditions. One being the exchanging of sake with the grooms and their parents and serving  _ katsudon _ . There was a toast one after another. Somewhere in that toast something was said about a ransom? Minako couldn’t remember, she was downing too much of the drinks that were offered. And then there was dancing. So much dancing! She dragged both of the handsome groomsmen into dancing with her and any young or old man that caught her fancy at the wedding party and she wouldn’t take no for an answer! Hiroko wasn’t safe, either. Poor Toshiya had to practically pry Minako off of his wife when he wanted his turn.

“When will we be having a wedding for you, Minako-senpai?” Hiroko asked, laughing and winded from their dance around the banquet hall.

“Eh, I don’t want to think about it.”

She really didn’t.

At some point during the night Hiroko and Toshiya took her home. At least, that’s who she assumed did since they were who she remembered speaking to last. 

And in the groggy haze of hangover and reflecting on the celebrations, Minako reminded herself that she gave up her dream to be here. It was her choice and she had no regrets. 

This was the love that made her happy. 


End file.
